Feel
by EmmanuelleG
Summary: Perhaps if they had been one being, Abigail Hobbs reflects, she would have been madly in love with the chimera. In the end, there's only one pair of lips she wishes to have truly tasted.


The story isn't linear. Nor is it what *really* happened in the show. Just a mad little ride.

* * *

She feels and sees everything. Well, not quite. She feels the pressure, the delicate flick of his wrist as he grabs a handful of her hair, his heavy presence. She feels how he breathes, and how he says her name, and how her neck is secured so struggling is not an option. She feels her personal control – did she ever possess any? - trickle down her spine just like the beads of sweat, products of rational fear.

"I will not hurt you," he says.

Despite evidence of the contrary – the knife pressed to her temple, his latex suit, his rare smile – she believes him. Hannibal is no liar. He is the personalization of embellishment. He gives the truth what it lacks: sometimes it's that harsh detail others purposefully omitted, and sometimes his gift is simplicity.

This is simple. Plain as day.

He will maim her.

Truth is beautiful. Others just don't see it.

"Breathe deep, Abigail," Lecter orders and tugs.

She almost shrieks for the pain brought on by his yanking her head backward into the sink is quite horrible. She can feel now, she realizes. His breath, now warm against her forehead. His smile, burning. His presence, intensely suffocating.

Tears well in her eyes, but she won't cry or scream. Even now, seconds before he cuts into her, she does not want to disappoint him.

His smile grows wider. "My good girl," he says.

(He's not good, but she still would walk the Earth for him.)

And the knife slices.

And Abigail forgets her resolve not to scream.

The agony splits her skull in half. The warm blood sizzles from the wound where once her ear resided. He lets go of her and steps back, admiring his work, not looking at her. She sees this through eyelids coated in scarlet drops.

Suddenly, Hannibal drops to his knees before her. His rough hands, now free of the latex, find her throat and he lifts her head toward him. The blood still sizzles. His thumb draws lazy circles on her jaw, using it as paint. She pants into his face for some minutes before he lightly covers her mouth with his.

He's kissed her before, but this is a first.

Abigail feels something again.

(She's drunk on the look in his bloodshot eyes. The pride they reflect is worth any pain.)

He says nothing as she bleeds all over his expensive suit.

* * *

When Abigail looks at herself in the mirror when Will is nearby she feels strong. Next to him, she is powerful. He adores her; perhaps more so than smart Alana.

Lovely, wise Alana who fails to see the truth as it charms her into its bed.

She is Will's anchor and assurance. If not for himself, he must retain a semblance of sanity for the girl whose father he murdered. She uses and enjoys that. His attention is a pleasure she isn't ready to relinquish.

She loves being wanted by him.

(Never the mind that Dear Dad pulled the knife on her first. The guilt he feels around her is potent. She could move mountains with it.)

But Will is beautiful too. She finds herself admiring his scruffy hair and that perpetual five o'clock shadow. She wants to take two steps and take his face in her hands. You are older, Abigail wants to say, and you are mine.

But he knows nothing of it.

(And yet he's aware of everything.)

"I am cold," Abigail murmurs.

"Take my jacket," Will Graham rasps. Then, minutes later, his fidgety voice adds, "I made this. I mean, I want to show you how to make one."

"What is it?"

"A fishhook."

So they sit, their legs crossed, their elbows nearly touching, and their fingers quite intertwined, on the floor of a mental institution as Jack Crawford's special pony shows the daughter of a cannibal how to weave feathers together.

"Will you come back?" she asks.

"Always," he replies without pause.

(He never lies to her. Abigail thinks it nice to reward him with a smile. He can't meet her eyes and it makes her heart flutter. Horrible, morbid Abigail who loves the sight of her father's killer.)

It isn't the voice of a nurse which steal him away from her, but a simply knock on the door. Hannibal Lecter in his fine suit, regal and charming, smiling for a while too long as he thanks her doctor on the other side of her kingdom.

(Here, she eats pills and is considered insane. With him, she stabs grieving boys and is viewed as a jewel.)

"Will," he says.

"I should go," her Will replies.

The door closes, sealing her and the elegant killer within its walls. She is drawn to him, but remains sited. He is not a good soul despite all the masks he wears daily. His lies make her lose count of time and pressure her lungs not to inhale.

(It's exciting to be the only one to share something with him.)

Hannibal Lecter is a great man.

Abigail Hobbs is his charity case.

(Abigail Hobbs is a stupid girl who rests her head on his knee.)

* * *

She's long forgotten what a dream should be like. Nightmares have taken over. She isn't afraid anymore. A never-ending ride of guilt is something she can learn to ignore in time. After all, she did it while her father was alive.

Go see that girl, he'd tell her.

She would obey. The girl would laugh and she would join in on the fun. Later, when she'd find her dead body on her father's table, Abigail would just go back home and kiss her mother. Maybe help her with pancakes; those are so difficult to make sometimes.

Tonight the girls with dark hair don't accuse her. They stand in line and watch as she walks past them, ignoring them in death as she did in life. Abigail feels nothing. It was always them or her.

"He's there," one of them whispers.

"Who is?"

"Walk."

So she does. There is blood between her toes. The girls are bone white and bleed from their eyes, making the ground slippery. Abigail trips. Once, twice. Before long, her hair is wet, her body is stained red, and the taste of iron and salt is lodged between her teeth. There is maroon grime under her fingernails.

One girl steps out of the rank of accusers and lounges at her. She embraces the one she knew for but an hour and kisses her cheek chastely. "You look like me," she murmurs happily into her ear before retreating.

A figure stands under a light originating from nowhere. His clothes are very nice but torn at the sleeves. He holds a fishing rod in one hand and a business card in the other. Abigail slips her arms around his middle and doesn't let go.

"How lucky you are," the stranger says, "to never have to make a choice."

She nods soundlessly into his strong back, inhaling his peculiar scent: earth and wine. He casts the fishing pole. The colorful hook spits feathers and bits of skin as it cuts through the air before finding home in the warm cheek of one of the girls.

_Cassie Boyle_, the business card in his left hand reads.

She helps the figure drag the girl toward him. Will's voice mutters something about antlers.

* * *

In the end, her strongest feeling comes from pushing Alana Bloom out of the window. She watches the woman bleed on the concrete, and then observes the rain wash away the evidence of her least awful crime.

(When Hannibal comes to get her, she smiles.)

His hands are bloody. He makes a reverent gesture as he leads her out of the room. His chest rises and falls. There's a pulsating vein in his neck. She wants to trace it with her finger, or maybe her tongue.

He's treated her so nicely all this time, but now they all must go back.

(She still smiles.)

When she sees Will, she says goodbye to her grin. It would be unfair to him. To Will Graham whose emotions are no mystery to her. Around her, he is one of those strays he collects. If she is Hannibal's charity case, then he is hers.

There is a moment of silence during which Will's hatred softens. It is brief, but long enough for her to understand it, for Hannibal to rejoice in it. This is his victory, but it is also hers. A minor one, but hers nonetheless. She knows everything about everyone in this hallway. She's tasted the bloody breath of the killer on her right, and has experienced the trembling embrace of the man who has just been stabbed in the stomach.

(At last she has a family where all is known. Where everyone is so very proud of the real her. A dull throbbing starts where her ear should be.)

There are no secrets between them. They are equals despite Hannibal having the upper hand.

He's shown her the simplicity of truth once and it'd been enough for her.

But this is the third, maybe the fourth, time he's attempting to do so with Will. He doesn't have long to comprehend just how right it is once accepted.

He kisses her one last time behind her remaining ear before slicing open her throat. The peck is barely there, doesn't linger a compromising second too long; Will can't see it and so won't judge. She squeezes his fingers.

(In encouragement? Affection? Fear?)

She wants to say goodbye, but the blood makes it impossible to even gargle properly. She convulses on the ground, watching his leather shoes calmly walk away. Will crawls to her and though her vision is foggy she can still make out his beautiful face as he cries.

"No, no, no," he repeats like a broken record as he attempts to cover her throat with his palm to somewhat quell the flow.

He grips the hand she used to squeeze Hannibal's in defeat.

This would have been enough, Abigail feels.

_Fin_


End file.
